Aiden's Adjustment

I've had lots of questions about how Aiden is adjusting to his new sister so I thought I'd answer that here. Aiden has adjusted rather well considering that he has been an only child for 4 years now. He has always been the type of kid who loves playing with other children. This quality is evident in the way he adores Jocelyn. He loves to pet her head, hold her, and bring her his stuffed animals to "play" with. It's adorable.

The difficulty for him is that Mom and Dad aren't readily available to meet every need. Breakfast happens later in the day, help with difficulties doesn't happen the moment he needs it, and Mom and Dad think it's funny when Jocelyn snorts, but not so funny when Aiden clears his throat 100 times in a minute to mimic Jocelyn's sound.

He also loves taking baths with his new sister despite the fact that the second time I bathed her with him she projectile pooped all over the outside of the tub (and me). For a minute he panicked that there was poop in the tub, but when I started laughing I think he was more concerned about why mommy found it so funny. Of course my darling husband thought that projectile poop on mommy's pants and the tub were cause for a photo opp (no, I won't post those pictures) and he made me stand there holding a screaming baby over the toilet while I was covered in poo so that he could run and find his brand new camera...Classic.

We've also seen some acting up. You know how it is, negative attention is better than no attention. We've implemented a chore chart and he gets paid and praised for doing a few extra jobs around the house with a good attitude. That has helped curb some of the negative attention-getting behavior. My mom assures me that he is doing extremely well with the change and the acting up he has done is to be expected.

So overall he's doing very well coping with two overtired parents, being stuck in the house all summer (instead of at the pool), and not being the center of attention anymore. We're so proud of him.